Eccentric, tea drinking, stationary addicted cat lady. Living with multiple chronic illnesses and a multipack of crisps, you'll most likely find me with a cup of tea, a new notebook and my kitty cat. Or in a hedge taking photos of wildlife. So grab a cup of tea with me, sit down and get stuck in.

Tag: dizziness

I might be used to it by now, but every day is probably like living with a cold/flu without the cough or snotty nose. Aches, pains, fevers and fatigue is just a part of every day life, and just because I’m used to it doesn’t mean it’s any easier after a few years.

Every year the dreaded cold and flu season creeps upon me where I shrink away from every person on the bus who sniffs and hold my breath in the lift when someone coughs. It’s the time of years I rattle with supplements and alcohol hand gel becomes my best friend. Despite having a compromised immune system, I think I’m relatively good at avoiding the lurgy. But when it hits, it comes down like a ton of bricks, casting veil of fatigue like nothing before over me, increasing pain five fold, the germs and ‘usual cold’ symptoms linger on and on and on. Well, if I’m going to be ill I may as well do it properly!

The virus I currently have couldn’t have picked a worse time. I’m about to have six days off work as holiday, my longest break in well over a year, which I’d set aside for studying and a day trip to see a friend. First came the swollen glands, then the sore throat and painful chest all washed down with complete exhaustion. Then I felt better for a day. Then it came back, and along with a blocked, runny nose came dizziness, light-headedness and a feeling of surrealism, altered vision and of course, the lucky bonus of increase fibro and ME symptoms. This resulted in me almost collapsing at work and having to be helped to the work car to be brought home. Not before I’d burst into tears in the toilets first because I was so scared. The funny turns lasted into the next day. I had to be dressed/undressed by my partner and dried off after a shower. Not your average cold you’d think. But it probably is, most people would feel awful for a few days, need a couple of days resting up with soup and hot drinks then be back with a spring in their step.

Living with symptoms and fibromyalgia and ME on a daily basis is tough and tests the willpower of even the most positive of people, but when germs and bugs find their way into that mix, it ends up in a long, drawn out period of awful symptoms and fear that it will never end.

I think writing this blog has just been an excuse for me to get things off my chest after what has been one hell of a week, and it’s definitely not over yet!